Birth

It took almost ten days for Emelyn to regain consciousness from the time she showed signs of life. She was conscious enough, after a few days in her bed at home, to be able to recognize Hobb and speak to him; but it would not have been an exaggeration to say that she seemed even then little more than a creature of habit like any other; this was because her entire existence had become so limited: eating, sleeping, walking slowly around in the yar, sitting doorway watching the sunset, or lying on the grass looking up at the stars, which were beginning to appear through the haze. It was as though she had been living in a chamber with its walls removed, only now that they were re-instated, what was left—and there wasn't much—was visible. The world, or rather, the world within her own head, became more clearly defined, the outlines of her thought clarified by the absence of distraction and competition from outside herself, but she remained, as far as we know, in the same state of mind she had occupied before the accident. Her body may have healed quickly, but she did not seem to recover her powers of communication.

During this time, Hobb did not go to work but stayed by her side to give her medicine every day, taking good care of her until he used up all the powder. And the news of her return from the dead has been the talk of the town: some said she did not drown at all, just fainted; some said she was blessed by the gods; some said Hobb's family had a magic herb that could bring people back to life; others—the most imaginative—said she might be a witch who had survived the burning of death. Whatever, the rumor also spread that the reason for her being alive was the fact that she was pregnant with her baby as she lay dying: if she hadn't been so, she would have died. This story too, however, came from no one in particular but was passed along from mouth to ear, and finally became the accepted truth.

They knew there was a lot of gossip about them in town, but they rarely went out, and they had a more critical thing to worry about: Emelyn had survived, but she was still very weak, and her baby was due in two or three months. The doctor warned them that childbirth was a very dangerous thing to do considering her situation. In order to ensure her safty, it would be better to terminate the pregnancy, even though also a high risk, at the time than to give birth. But Emelyn wouldn't hear of it. She refused to consider abortion, saying it was selfishness and that her child deserved a chance to live, and anyway she couldn't bear the thought of killing her own flesh and blood for her own safety. Then she became angry and began to cry, any time Hobb brought up this topic. Hobb began to regret why he had let her have the baby, and he even hated the unborn child a little: its very existence at this moment, putting Emelyn's life in danger, making him face the possibility of losing his lover again, making them suffer so much—all this made him feel guilty and afraid. He had no other choice but to pray that the baby would be born healthy and that Emelyn would safely survive the high-risk birth process because he knew that if anything happened to the baby, even if she survived, she would live forever in pain. Hobb lived with anxiety every day, anxiously waiting for the day of delivery, but dreading it simultaneously.

Emelyn, meanwhile, was having trouble sleeping, since she worried constantly over what could possibly happen to her and her baby ahead. At night when she slept, she dreamed that the baby was coming dead, and she woke up screaming in fright. Sometimes she felt such strong pains during the daytime that she feared she was going into labor prematurely, although nothing ever developed from these sensations. She often talked to the baby, trying to comfort herself by reassuring herself that everything was ok.

One morning, while she was dressing, she suddenly lost control of her legs and fell down on the floor. When Hobb rushed to help her, he saw how pale she looked, and she told him she had never been so sick in her whole life. They decided to take her straight away to the maternity clinic. As soon as they arrived, the doctor examined her thoroughly and found that she was about to go into labor. The doctor suggested that they should try to induce the labor immediately, fearing that otherwise, Emelyn might lose both mother and baby. So they called in the nurse and started preparing a bathtub full of hot water.

For ten hours, the longest ten hours of Hobb's life, he waited anxiously outside the delivery room, rushing back and forth, while in the delivery room Emelyn did not make a sound, as if she was silently suffering all the pain and not letting him worry outside. He was more worried about Emelyn than he was about the baby, and without her, he didn't know how he would be able to face life, face all of this. Hobb prayed to God, asking Him to spare Emelyn and the baby, but all the while, his heart was sinking lower and lower, deeper and darker inside himself, and he wished he could die instead of them. It was the best he could think of: let him die for either of them if God had to take one; after he left, they could live together; but in reality, there was no such option. He wanted to kill himself, he wanted to commit suicide, proving his sincerity, making atonement to God through his actions, but he dared not, not yet, not before he had seen them both safe. That was the way it had always been. It was a hard road to walk, and the harder it got, the less he had the strength to keep walking.

The sky was slowly darkening, perhaps because the night was approaching, perhaps because of the rain that was falling harder and harder by the minute. Soon the clouds turned black, and the wind picked up, blowing stronger and harder until it was a howling gale. The windows rattled and shook on their hinges, and the roof rained down pebbles. Everything was getting wet, covered with a thin layer of mud, and the floor was becoming slippery, and the patients in the nearby rooms began to shout to each other, calling in a panic. Outside, trees bent like reeds under the weight of the wind, and the red flowers on the lawns were blown away. By the time they finished washing Emelyn and put her in the birthing tub, the sun had gone down, and the moon was rising in the east. There was still plenty of light in the room, but it was a bit dimmer than usual, and the shadows cast by the low ceiling grew longer and longer. All the clocks were stopped, and there was no sense of time passing by.

Emelyn gave birth to a boy, who cried loudly, and the doctors held him close to Emelyn's chest. Although Emelyn was unconscious throughout the procedure, she heard the cries of the baby, and she smiled gently as though she was happy to see him. She had hardly recovered from her ordeal, but she seemed eager to hold the baby, although she was still weak and shivering from her suffering.

The baby was perfectly healthy and weighed nine pounds, exactly what the doctor predicted. Emelyn was kept overnight in intensive care.

The nurses wrapped the baby in a blanket and placed him on Emelyn's breast; she moved her lips, murmuring softly, and the baby responded by closing his eyes and sucking quietly. Huge, hot teardrops rolled down from both corners of her eyes, through her hair, onto the pillow, disappearing instantly, absorbed by the cotton immediately, leaving only faint marks.

After a few minutes, the nurses took the baby away and laid him beside her in bed, holding him tightly against her body. Hobb, watching them both, felt a great ecstasy inside himself, but he desperately tried to suppress his emotions, not daring to make a sound, for fear of disturbing them who were sleeping.

'You made it! You made it, Emelyn! You are a hero! You are my hero! Thank you!' Hobb hailed in his heart, imagining that he could throw her high into the sky, catch her with both hands, and hold her tightly in his arms. He had already lost her once, she bravely returned to him, he could not lose her again, he wanted to grasp her tightly in his hands, and never let go.

At this point, he reached under the blanket and tried to grab her hand, but he felt that the sheet was a little wet and a little sticky. He gently lifted the corner of the blanket, and was startled by the sight, then quickly removed the blanket from her body: blood was seeping out from between her legs, soaking the sheets beneath her, running down her body, forming a pool at the bottom of the mattress, her skin cold and clammy, her face white and cold, her long eyelashes wet with tears, her mouth slightly open, her lips parted

Hobb watched her in silence, breathing heavily and unable to move his feet. He panicked and called frantically for the doctor and nurses. The nurses took Emelyn away from Hobb to administer treatment, while he sat alone in the room staring at the door of the delivery room.

Without anybody realizing it, it was already stormy outside, with huge flashes of lightning, deafening thunder, and heavy rain pattering on the ground like they were about to destroy everything. Raindrops ran down the windows like tears. The winds blew so hard that the windows themselves vibrated, and the wooden shutters shook violently. The hospital became shrouded in darkness, so dark that Hobb could not see anything, and his eyes were dazzled by the flashes of lightning. The lights were off in Emelyn's room, too. Only a thin line of light shone through the crack between the curtains, and the nurse was standing in front of the window.

Suddenly a roar came from above the clouds, the sound was low and penetrating, not sharp but intimidating, as if miles away, but as if it was in your ears. It sounded as if thousands of voices were crying out in unison, and the earth trembled violently. Some brave people in the clinic went under the porch to see where the sound was coming from, ignoring the raindrops that drifted into the porch and drenched their clothes.

Hobb was also startled by the sound, but he wasn't in the mood to care about anything else. He sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for the results of his wife's resuscitation, and his child, surprisingly not affected at all by the loud and frightening sound, has been in deep sleep, as if everything in this world had nothing to do with him.

In a flash, the storm stopped, and the thunder dissipated, except for the rain flowing on the ground, as if nothing had happened. At that moment, a nurse also approached and said to Hobb, "I'm sorry, she didn't make it, your wife has passed away." She took one look at his face and turned to leave. She had seen too much of this kind of life and death, and the death of a person did not stir up too much emotion in her.

He stood frozen in the place, not moving, not breathing, not even having a heartbeat. A minute passed, and he remained in this position when suddenly he felt a violent contraction of his heart as if pierced by a long, cold sharp needle. All the blood in his body rushed to his brain within a second, leaving his body as a cold shell, and then his head became heavier and heavier. His body was like a stiff corpse slammed straight backwards onto the solid ground like a big tree collapsing.